HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 12/01/2011Affordable Housing Board
Thursday December 1, 2011 Meeting
4:00-6:00 PM
Conference Rooms A & B
281 N. College Avenue
Chair: Ben Blonder
Staff Liaison: Ken Waido, 970-221-6753
City Council Liaison: Lisa Poppaw
Board Members Present: Karen Miller, Ben Blonder, Dan Byers, Mike Sollenberger,
Wayne Thompson
Board Members Absent: Marie Edwards, Wendie Robinson,
Advance Planning Department Staff Present: Sharon Thomas and Heidi Phelps, Grant
Program Administrators with Advance Planning
Council Members Present: None
Other Staff Present: Beth Sowder, Neighborhood Services Manager; Leslie Prassas,
Minute Taker
Guests: Jim Cox, Homeless Coordinator with Fort Collins Housing Authority; Samantha
Murphy, Health District of Northern Colorado; Marilyn Hellers, League of Women
Voters; CSU Tourism Planning students: Richard Van Tine, Amanda Zajicek, and Rex
King
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Meeting called to order by Ben Blonder at 4:10.
A. NEW BUSINESS
1. Tabling of the Approval of Minutes of the November 3, 2011 Meeting
Approve at Jan. meeting.
2. Presentation by the Fort Collins Housing Authority.
a. Overview of the FCHA
By Jim Cox, Homeless Coordinator for FCHA (runs the Single Room
Occupancy Program).
Samantha Murphy from Health District is working together with me (Jim Cox) in a
partnership. She will also talk about what we’ve been working on in partnership, and
we’ll both talk at the end about what we’ve learned over the last 4 years working
together with chronically homeless folks, and the continued housing that we think is
important for people to know about, and initiatives that we’re trying to address over
the next few years.
------------PowerPoint Presentation------------
(Elements are included to provide context for additional
discussions during the presentation.)
• We want to talk a little about how the Housing Authority has been reformed: it
started during Depression era. There’s a board appointed, hiring of Executive
Director of Policy; has budget fiscal responsibility, hiring and oversight.
• Lisa Poppaw is Vice Chairperson. It used to be part of City Government back in
the 1970s. The Housing Authorities are Serving 4200 people now. Runs Public
Housing, Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8), Community Dual Disorders
Team, Single Room Occupancy Housing, Northern Hotel, Villages Affordable
Housing, and Resident Services Programs.
• Own 154 federally subsidized Public Housing units
• Majority is well below 30% of area median income.
Board Question: Are there Hostels?
Cox: No
Board Question: Have they sold all single Family Housing?
Cox: Only some.
It’s very expensive to do maintenance on older buildings.
Board Question: Have the subsidies been lowered?
Answer: There aren’t enough funds coming back from rent. There’s an ongoing
maintenance charge. Negative ratchet.
Scattered sites throughout FC/Wellington are:
• Difficult to maintain
• Under-funded capital needs
• Disposition possible.
Wellington Public Housing
Scattered throughout
Nice senior complex and community center.
Partnership with DHS (Department of Human Services)
914 housing assistance vouchers in Fort Collins:
Plus 100 (150?) in Larimer County
Plus 50 Family Unification Program vouchers
Housing choice voucher (there is a high demand for this)
80% is “tenant-based” assistance to families renting wherever they choose, or
“portable”.
20% is “project based” assistance assigned to rentals owned by local nonprofits (non-
portable).
$6,456,591 in federal housing assistance payments made to local property
Partnered up with Community Dual Disorders Treatment (CDDT). Partnership
between Larimer Center for Mental Health, Health District of Northern Larimer
County, Connections, and FCHA. Programs have been active for four years for
people who have severe mental problems and substance abuse.
Housing Authority wants to work with the City to provide 12 initial vouchers to help
dual disorders.
Single Room Occupancy Program (SRO) Chronic Homeless
• 2 sites (one on Myrtle, and one over Guitar Store. Just ended the lease on
Linden in Oct. due to a cash flow problem)
• 27 units for people who are homeless
• Transitional permanent housing
• Onsite resident managers
• Case management and mental health services
Clinical Overview is conducted by us (H.A.).
SRO’s typical waiting list: 37 units, waitlist is 2-6 months long.
50 people are on the waiting list. Maximum Occupancy. Processing a couple per month
in turnover.
Owned by Villages, Ltd.: which is a non-profit corporation formed to extend the
capabilities of FCHA beyond the scope of federal programs.
• 506 units managed by FCHA
• 30-50% of area median income, is who is served
• No one pays gas bills because the whole thing is passive and active solar and geo-
thermal, which has been awarded. They renovated a 95 year old property to make
it more efficient and the state and federal funds it.
Future Development and Preservation
Trying to do low income tax credit property.
Interesting Partnerships:
• CDT
• Family Unification Program
• Crossroads SafeHouse transition
• Project Self Sufficiency
• Homeward 2020: 10 year plan to end homelessness
Contact information: Julie Bowen, Exec. Dir. FCHA, 970-416-2917
------------End PowerPoint Presentation------------
No further questions
b. Dual Disorders Program – Tenant Base Rental Assistance
Samantha Murphy with Health District
Community Dual Disorder Treatment Program:
Progress and Lessons Learned:
Mental Health and Substance Abuse programs have been together 12 years---a group of
27 organizations to change how we provide service to substance abusers and mental
health patients. Need to be clean and sober before we can work with your mental health
issues, and vice versa. The partnership realized that they needed to address both of these
issues at the same time, because they are linked. This is a huge shift in philosophy in
combining these services. This movement is happening across the country. There are
some infrastructure challenges.
• Partnership: need to address both mental health and substance abuse – can’t work
with people who only have one - need to overhaul system.
• People are abusing emergency services and getting acute care instead of long-term.
• To gather this information we contacted the police and hospitals to identify these 12
offenders who need housing.
------------PowerPoint Presentation------------
(Elements are included to provide context to additional
discussions during the presentation.)
Program Overview:
• Community Collaborative
• Severe Mental Health and Severe substance abuse
• Intensive/Wrap-around Services
• Evidence-based Programming.
After doing a study, we found severe mental health patients and habitual abusers of
substances who used programs habitually were homeless. So, they needed housing first.
Patients must commit to the program. We are in the 4
th
year of program with 21
individuals. Next year there’s a forecast of 30.
It’s an evidence-based program. It’s been researched and structured in a very particular
way in which it’s provided.
1. Program Objectives
o Maximize fidelity (the way the program is administered)
o Provide stage-appropriate interventions
o Overall community savings (they have tracked what services the client has
used a year prior to starting this program so they can compare costs)
2. Client Objectives
o 62% reduction in overall service usage
o Total cost per client is down by 75% from before they entered the program
o Emergency Dept Visits are down 96%
o ER/Ambulance usage is down 83%
o Inpatient psychiatric treatment is down 83%
There’s been a significant reduction in inappropriate service usage.
There’s a range of where people are in terms of addressing the issues they have. Ranging
anywhere from “I’m fine, I don’t need help”, to “I don’t understand”, and “I might
acknowledge I have some problems”.
1. Engagement Phase: Maybe I do have an issue. What else can you do for me, and why
is it valuable for me to do these things?
2. Treatment Program
3. Recovery: a stipulation of recovery is: mental illness and substance abuse must be
under control.
Same thing is measured for substance abuse---
Program is not a structured standard curriculum. A big component is meeting the client
where they are, to respect that, and work with them there. Their progress is up and down
over time. It takes a lot of work for the team and the individual. There is a great amount
of progress seen in 3 years to moving to the Recovery Phase.
Medical Hospitalization was the highest $ amount. Psychiatric treatment was high also as
well as ambulance services. Then Jail/Prison, and last Detox/Addiction [Tx?], with the
hospitals bearing the largest burden
The use of these services is way down, especially the Medical Hospitalization. Still need
to separate the positive usage of services from the negative usage.
Medical hospitalization rose, jail and prison rose a little bit. People are engaged in
program and taking care of prior obligations such as warrants.
We still don’t have residential mental health or substance abuse treatment here for long-
term.
The cost of the program per person is: Year 1--$30,000; Year 2--$14,000; Year 3--
$10,000 each year.
It’s not inexpensive to provide this program. It is very staff intensive. The program
amount per client is $19,307, significantly less than before they were in the program.
Total it is just shy of $30,000 to maintain them as a relatively productive citizen ($29,000
is the total utilization and program …(?)
Jim Cox works directly with the clients as a CDDT Program member.
Board Question: How do you get them enrolled?
Cox: It’s a number of steps. We have learned a lot about intake over the last 4 years.
Once a client reduces their substance use, many times they’re not mentally ill anymore.
We don’t want to take these types of people. They do a 3-step evaluation of them.
Referrals all went through the Mental Health Center. The 3-step process more truly
identifies mental health issues. There are referrals from a lot of different places. It used to
be in Criminal Justice—but now it’s under Mental Health Center, the Murphy Day Center
has therapists on site. They do an initial screening off the street which is a big help.
It is hard to distinguish mental health problems from people with chronic substance
abuse.
Board Question: Why do you go for dual-disorder people and not substance-abuse
people?
Murphy: This program is just intended for dual disorder persons.
Board Question: Where does the money actually come from?
Cox: Costs have shifted to Mental Health Center, FCHA, Health District, Housing
Authority, and the City of Fort Collins. We got a grant from Human Services for
$15,000. The overall budget is $300,000.
Hospitals are passing on emergency room costs to insurance and “all of you”---non-
reimbursed money (not losing or gaining money).
For people who have the readiness to change, a recovery model could potentially be a 3-4
year process.
• What we’ve learned: key retention skills
o 1) Difficulty separating from “unwelcomed homeless friends”
o 2) Inability to create constructive social and work alternatives. The
resulting/isolation and loneliness of independent living reinforces or
intensifies unstable behavior.
o 3) Chronic substance abuse and mental health issues are slow to change
and are a disturbance to neighbors in the meantime.
Lessons learned:
Conversely, mismatched interventions can hinder progress. We have got to have more
than “Here take a voucher and go out into independent living.”
Creating a continuum of housing options is required that matches peoples’ needs.
• Half of the people are using jail, detox, in-patient psychiatric services, couch surfing,
street, as an alternative to vouchers. Reason: the housing market for single
apartments is extremely tight.
• Clients with terrible tendency history (high instability) have difficulty being accepted
into housing programs.
• There are also individuals with terrible key-retention (literally, they lose their keys).
Some people who are accepted have a high turn-over rate because of their homeless
network of friends: elaboration: they have difficulty creating middle class social
networks, so they compensate by returning to old bad behaviors.
There is a strong need for other options than independent housing (important). We need
to create a continuum including support services, building designs, and operations
structures.
Board Q: Isn’t it like senior housing model?
Answer: Yes! The developmentally disabled movement is similar.
An effective housing continuum includes:
Crisis intervention
ER, detox, ATU, Mt. Crest, out of area psych beds
Homeless Shelters: Catholic Charities Mission, Open Door Mission (run on a
lottery system now because there isn’t enough room for everyone). They must
pass a breathalyzer test. Lottery system (unfortunate): elaboration—sometimes
demand exceeds capacity.
Short-Term Residential (1-6 months): LCMH’s Choice House—they have 8 beds
(they could use 25 more beds).
Sober Living Homes: Light House has 30-35 beds, Sober Sisters has 6 beds. For
people who want to be sober. There’s no tracking. You have to pay some money.
Zero tolerance for substance abuse of any sort. No necessary therapy required for
the sober-living homes. No tenancy.
Light House on Welch, the former fraternity where Sam Spady died of alcohol
poisoning, was donated by the owner to a local church.
Promise House, Choice House, Harvest Farm (long-term residential) again zero
tolerance for substance abuse.
CDDT Housing Lessons:
Housing continuum continued:
Short Term Clinical Stabilization (under 30 days) Preference is that STCS will not
resemble the Choice House.
People re-entering society have a difficult transition.
Permanent Supportive Housing:
o FCHA’s current SRO program, VASH (for Veterans. The case
management goes away after a while, and they’re free to use the voucher
any way they want).
o Basic Skill-Building Transitional
Permanent Independent Living
Housing Choice vouchers, VASH
We’ve had 3 houses with about 50 occupants in them. There are resident managers who
do clinical work in the houses. Cash flow didn’t work anymore at Linden.
VASH- (there will not be a homeless veteran on the street. There is a federal commitment
there. They have vouchers to use, and there’s not enough, there’s a waiting list. They’re
up to 100 now.) Vets have many advantages over other homeless people if positively
discharged.
We need to provide skill-building.
Housing Initiative:
• A proposed 40 unit permanent supportive housing complex developed by the
FCHA (tentative opening Feb. 2013). Initial CDBG award granted of $540,000.
• Serious conversations with potential supportive services partners have included
Larimer Center for Mental Health, Community Corrections, Larimer County
Department of Human Services, and Hand UP Cooperative (HUP).
Deal with shelters, food banks, and symptoms. We need to find a way to house people
permanently. CDT is a great model.
The location is not locked down yet. A development staff is working with the City. We’ll
be coming in to AHB for the competitive process in Feb.
It takes 3 things: vouchers, development, and support services. We’re doing the vouchers
and development and are hoping for a partnership with the City for the support services.
If we intend to address the permanent housing needs of dual disordered and/or
chronic homeless persons (million $ men), our community must fill critical gaps in
the housing continuum.
------------End PowerPoint Presentation------------
Board Q: If you look at economy of scale, at what point do you try to pull Loveland into
it, and make it more of a Larimer County effort? The need is there, do you try to get
bigger?
Cox: The economy scale has to be 40 minimum. We’re starting as small as we can for as
big as we can be. We’ll try this out first to see if it works. This community has got a 10
year initiative going that Loveland doesn’t have. The timing and focus of it is Fort
Collins now. We just want to get something on the Boards. If we get it going with what
we have in this community, we’ll see about expanding.
Board Question: How long do you anticipate treating these people?
Murphy: It’s a time unlimited program. It could be for their whole lives.
The 40 unit building is not just for CDDT people. It’s aligned with Homeward 2020. It’s
permanent supportive housing. There will be lots of needs. As you start to provide for
more needs, you won’t need as many services for those people after about 5-7 years.
CSU Student question: How many homeless do we have?
Cox: 229 homeless in Fort Collins by going out and asking people asleep on the ground
under blankets. Of the 229, 92 had both substance abuse and mental health problems.
There are an estimated 1000 in Larimer County. If you add the couch surfers, it would be
substantially more. There are 700 children in PSD system, which includes if they’re
living with a grandparent. There are an estimated 300-400 unaccompanied homeless,
living on the street; no custodial parent.
(Cox and Murphy left at 5:30.)
3. Strategic (Student) Housing Action Plan [SHAP]
Beth Sowder, Neighborhood Services Manager
----------------(PowerPoint Presentation)---------------
Mission: To develop community driven strategies that encourage and provide an
adequate supply of quality student housing while maintaining neighborhood quality and
compatibility.
There is a collaborative effort between CSU and the City to lead. Agencies involved
include: Front Range, neighbors, property owners, property managers, developers,
designers, CSU Research Foundation, Board of Realtors, Rental Housing Association,
ASCSU, as well as students in general, and Everett Mills.
Specific policies for student housing: Live 7.2: develop an adequate supply of housing,
and 7.7 which is to identify future locations for development.
Action plan: work with developers.
CSU wants to increase international students with a preference of having them live on
campus so they have access to all the facilities and support in close proximity.
CPD will take the lead - aided in creating focus groups.
------------End PowerPoint Presentation------------
If you know anyone else that should be involved, please let us know before February.
There’s a work session with City Council on February 14, 2012. We’ll be going back
after that with actual recommendations.
Board Q: Other than the Three Unrelated Rule (is applicable to apartments), is there any
zoning prohibition against student housing? CSU is not subject to our housing
regulations. There isn’t anything that will contain the spread?
Sowder: We want to develop multi-unit housing along Mason corridor. We want CSU to
step up a little more and encourage private developers who might create some on-campus
developments. CSU just announced an expansion of Lory Student Housing.
Board: People can’t sell their houses. CSU thinks they need 1,500 (15,000?) beds per
year. These numbers were based on no one living in single-family housing.
Sowder: Neighbors are really worried about increase in density. But, there’s a need.
Board Q: Amend the zoning ordinance, as long as it is in an approved multi-unit
housing, allow 4 bedrooms. Just not in single-family houses.
Phelps: There’s a news report this week about “It’s the Golden Girls again”. Older
couples and women are starting to gather together and house-sharing because they can’t
afford housing otherwise.
4. Customer Satisfaction with Staff Support Services Survey
B. OTHER BUSINESS
We’ll talk about Low-Density next meeting and the Development Incentives Project.
Phelps: Looks like we might get a half-time contractual Housing Authority person,
which will be huge.
Blonder: We are losing Wendi Robinson, as she’s resigning---she can’t be on two
boards at once. I have a couple of possibilities---someone who worked at Care
Housing for years who I think will be a good fit. Marie is probably going to go too, as
she is term-limited.
Wayne has to go for an interview for this position with Lisa on the Council.
C. Next Month’s Agenda
1. Please refer to the AHB 6 Month Planning Calendar.
D. Future Meetings
1. Any additions to the AHB 6 Month Planning Calendar?
----Meeting adjourned at 5:58 PM by Ben Blonder----